


halloween ficlets

by honeyvenom



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anal Sex, Body Horror, Bottom Eddie Kaspbrak, Character Death, Cunnilingus, Daddy Kink, Demons, Depression, Dom/sub, Dubious Consent, Eating Disorders, Feminization, Homophobic Language, Horror, Love Potion/Spell, M/M, Rape/Non-con Elements, Suicidal Thoughts, Top Richie Tozier, Werewolves, Witches, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:55:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27249175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeyvenom/pseuds/honeyvenom
Summary: All the Reddie Halloween drabbles and ficlets that I wrote on tumblr this month, taking inspiration from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Jennifer's Body, and more.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 8
Kudos: 135





	halloween ficlets

**Author's Note:**

> I find Halloween such an inspiring time, so I wrote eight drabbles / short stories on my tumblr for a variety of prompts.
> 
> I want to thank the artist Luncheonart, who made two beautiful pieces of art for my "dripping" and "weapons" drabbles, and whose art of cheerleader fem Eddie inspired my "ouch" drabble. You're amazing, Lunch!
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy these little fics! There are instances of extreme violence and non-con, so please heed the tags.

**Prompt #1 Dripping**

Richie’s grumpy when he gets to the lake. 

It was a Saturday, which meant he should have been down at the arcade trying to beat his latest high score on Street Fighter, or at home digging through his latest haul from Derry’s one shitty comic book store. What he shouldn’t have been doing was hightailing it down to the lake, because the others had told him that it was urgent. That they had to talk to him. That it couldn’t wait. 

_What’s getting ants in your pants_ , he felt like saying. But instead he’d said, _ugh fine, I’ll be there,_ before slamming the phone down and grabbing his backpack before hightailing it out of the house.

When he gets there, the others are already waiting for him. Their faces are anxious and they stand there at the glimmering edge of the water, sneakers sooty with trail dust, leaves from the woods clinging to their clothes and hair. 

“What’s the big idea?” Richie says as he half jumps off his bike. “You know Saturday afternoons are my allocated arcade time.” 

They don’t answer him; instead they all look at each other and Richie huffs.

“Sometime this century would be good?”

Bev’s the one who finally breaks their silence.

“We have something to show you,” she says. 

“What? If it’s Stan’s dick, forget about it. It’s so tiny I won’t even be able to see it.”

“Fuck you, Trashmouth,” Stan gripes. He’s standing near the water and every now and then he glances at it, clenching his hands at his sides. And Richie knows Stan well enough to know it’s a nervous gesture, something he only does before something like a big exam.

“What is it then?”

Bev hesitates and shoots Bill a look, who nods at her to continue.

“It’s not really something, it’s someone.”

“Someone…?”

“There’s someone we’d like you to meet.”

Richie blinks at them. They brought him all the way out here to do what? Interview a potential member of the Losers Club?

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

Stan rolls his eyes. “You’re so impatient, asshole. We’re trying to explain.”

“Y-yeah, Richie, just cool it for a minute,” Bill says. "We need you to listen.“

But Richie’s mind wanders back to what he could be doing right now. Of the cool, dark corner of the arcade where he can get back to Street Fighter and his endless sodas. His fingers itch in his pockets, wanting to feel the grubby joystick between them.

“I’m more of a show and tell kinda guy,” he says with a cocky tilt of his eyebrows.

“Let’s just do it,” Mike says. “It’s about time he knows. He’s the only one who doesn’t.”

Richie’s good humour vanishes. And he’s hit with a wave of apprehension. Something he only feels when he’s walking home alone down Derry’s quiet streets. When he turns a corner and swears he feels something shift, like the ground beneath his feet isn’t quite real. When the air seems to heat and he hears a faint singing coming from the sewers.

It was moments like that where Derry felt like more than just the backwater town he grew up in. And Richie’s struck with that uncanny sense again. The feeling that Derry was a façade for something else. Something much deeper and darker. 

“What are you-”

“You’ll see,” Ben says, giving Richie a smile as soft as a winter blanket. “You’ll understand.”

“Understand what?”

But they ignore him as they all turn to the water, its surface as still as a painting.

“Eddie, come out,” Stan says.

“Eddie?” Richie says, feeling lost. “Who’s-”

But Richie doesn’t finish his sentence. Can’t. Because a second later a head is emerging from the water. Slowly. Revealing dark hair, a tanned face and a cluster of freckles dotted across a small nose. And that’s not any kind of fish Richie has seen before. It’s a _boy_.

Richie feels his mouth fall open as the others break apart to give him a clearer view.

The boy rises until his head and shoulders are peeping out of the water, dripping blue. He blinks up at the Losers, water clinging to his lashes, as they greet him with waves and big grins.

He smiles back and Richie feels faint as he sees the dimples popping on his cheeks. 

“Richie, this is Eddie,” Bev says softly from somewhere to his left. “And he’s our friend.”

But Richie still can’t speak. Because there are drops of water clinging to the boy’s nose and cheeks, glinting in the sunlight like tiny crystals, and the side of his face and chest shimmer with light blue scales, like the glitzy dresses that Derry girls stepped into for the summer dance. Because somehow, between the deep brown of the boy’s eyes and the pale pink of his lower lip, he’s the most beautiful thing Richie’s ever seen.

“Hi,” the boy - this _mer-creature_ \- says as he looks up at him shyly. “Hi, Richie.”

And later, much later, Richie swears up and down that he said something suave. That he hadn't been clumsy and tongue-tied. But in the moment all he can do is stare at the boy until, finally, he swallows the lump in his throat and says, “Hey.”

**Prompt #2 Fangs**

Eddie’s busy rustling around in his big box of supplies when he hears a sharp intake of breath and a pained moan from behind him.

He sighs and looks over his shoulder, where Richie’s reclining pitifully against his bed like a dog that’s come limping in from the cold.

“What have you done now?”

Richie waves his hand like it’s nothing, but it doesn’t stop his grimace as a trail of blood drips down his chin like a cherry slushie. 

Eddie points a finger at him, a long line of bandages spilling from his hand. 

“Richie! You need to stop doing that!”

Richie’s eyes go wide behind his glasses. 

“It’s not like I meant to do it!”

“You keep prodding them, just stop!”

Richie pouts, or at least he tries to, except he winces as soon as his teeth meet his tongue.

“This fucking sucks,” he grouches as he swipes his chin with the back of his hand, smearing the blood across his pale skin. 

Eddie sighs again and makes his way back to his bed, his hands bundled with gauze, antiseptic and bandages. 

Richie eyes the small pile he deposits by his crossed legs.

“You gonna patch me up, Nurse K?”

“Yeah, so shut up and let me do it.”

Mercifully, Richie does. He keeps his mouth shut the entire time Eddie pulls a fresh tissue from a new pack and begins to dab delicately at the cut on Richie’s bottom lip. One of three cuts he’d given himself that day. And all from the set of fangs Richie had grown over the weekend, along with the furry pair of floppy ears buried in his hair, and the tail he was keeping hidden in the back of his jeans.

But of course Richie still can’t help but moan dramatically as Eddie presses the tissue to the cuts on his bottom lip.

“You’re so stupid,” Eddie says as he finally pulls the tissue away, wincing at the thick spread of blood that lifts with it. 

“Huh? What did I do?”

Eddie makes a face at him. “Honestly, Richie, what didn’t you do?”

Next, after folding up the sodden tissue and putting it in a ziploc bag, he lifts a cold compress to Richie’s face.

“Here, keep this pressed to the cuts. It’ll bring down any swelling.”

Richie does as he’s told, though he frowns petulantly at Eddie.

“It’s not like I asked for this, you know.”

Eddie bites down gently on his own tongue to stop himself from shouting.

“I told you not to go near that dog, didn’t I? You’re lucky it didn’t give you rabies too or we’d have to put you down.”

The noise that Richie makes in response sounds suspiciously like the whine of a kicked dog, which Eddie politely ignores. 

He stares at Richie for a moment, trying to figure out what they were going to do. The ears and the tail were easy enough to hide, but the ridiculously sharp white fangs were another matter entirely. 

“I think we’ll need to file them down.“

“What?”

“Your _fangs_ , genius.”

Richie’s mouth drops open and the compress hits the bedspread. 

“Fuck no!”

“Keep the compress to your mouth I said!”

Richie automatically does as he’s told, but it doesn’t stop his glare.

“We’re not doing that, Eddie.”

“I’m sorry, do you want to be cutting your mouth open every second of the day? How do you think everyone at school's going to react to that? And what’s your dad going to do when he finally notices? You can’t hide here forever."

“But I just got them,” Richie mumbles, half-muffled behind the compress.

“Stop being such a baby.”

“You’ll be taking my balls next.”

“Believe me, I have no use for those.”

That makes Richie laugh, though he quickly winces again.

A few minutes later, Eddie takes back the compress and surveys the damage. Richie’s mouth looks better and most of the bleeding has stopped, though his bottom lip is bruised purple and covered in shallow cuts.

But Eddie, after years of patching up the Losers like a little clockwork doll, always knows exactly what to do.

As a final touch he takes a small tube of petroleum jelly from the small pile on his bed and squeezes a blob onto his finger.

Richie arches a brow and starts to open his mouth but Eddie cuts in quickly.

"If you make a joke about me putting this up your butt I’m never talking to you again.”

“Liar,” Richie says with a smile, but Eddie’s too busy with the tube to contradict him.

Taking a deep breath, Eddie starts to dab the jelly on Richie’s bottom lip. He feels his face heat, knowing he’s probably blushing red under his freckles, but he refuses to meet Richie’s eyes, refuses to let the other boy see how flustered he is from this simple touch.

Richie winces despite Eddie’s delicate fingers, making him roll his eyes.

“You really are such a baby,” he says.

“Not a baby, Eds,” Richie says when Eddie pulls his hand away. “I’m a big, bad monster now. Don’t you read the newspaper?”

“Monster,” Eddie scoffs. “You’re an overgrown puppy.”

He expects a witty retort, or to be shoved down onto the bed and tickled. What he doesn’t expect is for Richie to shoot out one of his stupidly long arms so he can pull Eddie halfway into his lap.

“Richie, don’t!” Eddie shouts, trying to extricate himself. “If you get blood on my shirt I’ll kill you!”

But Richie ignores his thrashing, tightening his arms around Eddie until he’s forced to surrender. He grins down at him, his fangs curving over his bottom lip, and Eddie feels himself grow slightly faint at the sight of them. How oddly feral his best friend looks now. The soft red glow in the blue of Richie’s eyes doesn’t help either. It reminds him of a wolf that had just scented a deer through the woods. Of the burning end of a cigarette.

“Admit it and I’ll let you go,” Richie says.

“Admit what, you weirdo!”

“Admit that it’s cool, all of this.”

And for some reason Eddie can’t deny it. He smiles as he reaches out and gently slides his finger across the tip of one sharp incisor. Not enough to cut himself, but enough for him to feel the slight pressure against his skin. Like the threat of a kiss, or of a cold knife. 

"Yeah, idiot,” he says, “I guess it’s pretty cool.”

**Prompt #3 Weapons**

The Watcher is younger than Eddie had expected. Younger, and scruffier too. Nothing like the nice man that Eddie had met at his new high school. The Librarian with the soft voice and the even softer eyes, who had told him that it was okay, it was fine to be scared.

But no, his Watcher didn’t turn out to be the nice Librarian, or the mysterious red-haired woman with burns on her arms who Eddie had seen setting fire to a vampire without even lifting a finger. No, instead it was this scruffy, deeply unimpressive man with the glasses and the terrible patterned shirts, who had introduced himself to Eddie while eating Burger King, a strawberry milkshake in one hand as he offered it to Eddie, saying he knew it was his favourite. Who had been standing outside his high school waiting for him to walk out like a total pervert. 

He was 25 apparently. A little young to be a Watcher. But Eddie hadn’t asked questions. Had liked to pretend he didn’t care. 

They’re at the hideout, a spare room above a noodle bar in Chinatown, that Richie says they’re going to use to train. But Eddie feels dubious. He’s seen the way Richie smokes, and the man’s soft stomach doesn’t make him think he’s been doing a lot of crunches.

The weapons rack in front of him is a sadist’s daydream: there are knives, axes, swords, wooden stakes, a pair of nunchucks, whips, even a chain with a spiked ball at the end of it that Eddie’s certain would do more damage to him than anyone else. 

He looks over his shoulder at Richie where he’s leaning back against a desk, his arms crossed across his broad chest. 

Not that Eddie’s noticed or anything. 

“So I can… fight with all of this?”

“Sure,” Richie says, “but I want you to tell me which one you _want_ to fight with. Look at the weapons and tell me which one you gravitate to. And I mean really look at them. Imagine fighting with each one, and tell me which one feels right to you. Which one you want to hold in your hands.”

Eddie looks back at the weapons. He doesn’t know which one he wants to fight with. He doesn’t want to fight at all. 

After a moment he points to a heavy axe in the middle of the display. “That one.”

Richie raises an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth turning up into one of those annoying smirks. “Oh really?”

“Yes, really. You just told me to choose.”

“Are you sure you can even handle that? It probably weighs just as much as you do.”

“Does it matter? Don’t I have super strength now anyway?”

Richie doesn’t look convinced, but he shrugs and pushes off the desk. 

“Okay, let’s try it out then.”

Richie crosses the room and takes the axe from the display. A second later he’s in front of Eddie and without warning, drops it. Eddie flings his hands out, only catching it at the last moment. He glares up at Richie. At his stupid smirk and his thick glasses.

“You okay with that?” Richie asks. 

“Yes.”

“Good. Just testing your reflexes.”

Eddie frowns at him, his hands clinging to the axe. It feels alien in his grip. Like an intrusion, something unwanted. 

Richie’s smile turns contemplative.

“I was surprised, you know. When they said it was you. You’re the first male in centuries to have been chosen. That means you’re doubly special.”

“I doubt that,” Eddie mumbles. “There’s nothing special about me.”

“Haven’t they told you? You’re-”

“The Chosen One. I know. One boy in all the world who can fight the vampires yadda yadda. I get it, I’ve read the manual, okay?”

And Eddie had. A thickly bound manuscript that the visiting Watcher had placed before him. All about what it meant to be a Slayer and why he had been chosen. When he had been told that it was his fate. That he was the only person that could stop the world being plunged into darkness. 

Eddie had argued with the Watchers; had spent two weeks screaming and begging and crying, saying over and over that he couldn’t do this, that it had been a mistake. But it didn’t matter. The Watchers Council had barely budged, even in the face of his most fiery tantrum, when Eddie had taken one of their oldest books and ripped the pages out of it until he had fallen, sobbing, into a ball on the floor. 

He had grown sullen after that, had hardly spoken. Refused to cooperate with the Watchers when they reached out to him. Until Richie had turned up outside of his new school one afternoon and told him to stop sulking. 

Richie chuckles, breaking through his thoughts.

“It’s boring as shit, I know. I suggested that we teach you about the origins of the Slayer through interpretative dance, but they didn’t listen to me.”

Eddie almost smiles, but forces it off his face at the last second. Richie doesn't deserve to see him smile. 

“So how does it feel?”

Eddie fumbles with the axe. It felt awkward in his hands. Cold, and heavy. He couldn’t imagine swinging it. Could hardly even hold it. All he wanted was to drop it on the floor and run all the way home. Away from Richie. Back to his old house in Derry. Back to mamma and her microwave dinners, to his bedroom and his dreaded math homework. Anywhere but here. 

“It feels okay,” he says. 

“Oh yeah? Then why are you holding it like that?”

Eddie glares up at him. Suddenly wants to use his new strength to punch him right in his aggravating, stupidly chiselled jaw.

“How is it supposed to feel? All I’m going to do is kill things with it, right? It doesn’t have to feel good.”

But Richie shakes his head. “That’s not it. You’re not a killer, you’re the Slayer.”

“What’s the difference?”

“There’s a big difference. Come on, let me help you with that.”

Richie circles around Eddie until he's standing directly behind him.

“Here,” he hears Richie say softly, his breath making the small hairs on the back of Eddie’s neck shock up. “This is how you hold it.”

Eddie jumps a little when Richie lowers his hands to rest on his forearms, directing them down the axe until he’s holding it properly. He swallows. Eddie’s only wearing a thin t-shirt, and in the chill of the room Richie’s skin burns where he touches him. 

He expects Richie to draw away then, for the cold to hit his back when Richie steps away, but to his surprise, Richie doesn’t. Instead his hands ghost across Eddie’s shoulders, and for a moment he forgets how to breathe.

“You need to relax, okay? You’re too tense.”

Eddie nods, but he suddenly can’t speak.

This close, Eddie can smell him. Richie smells like cigarette smoke and some kind of cheap aftershave, but beneath that he smells warm and woodsy. Eddie realises with a jolt that it’s a nice smell. Comforting. And he realises that he likes the way Richie smells. That he likes the way Richie _feels_. 

“How’s that now? Better?”

“A little,” Eddie manages to say, hating how thick his voice sounds. Syrupy.

“Why did you choose the axe?”

Eddie shrugs. “It looked like it was the best thing to choose. The most powerful.”

Richie huffs, and the sudden gust of breath against his skin makes Eddie shiver. 

“It’s not about what looks good, remember? You’re thinking about this too hard. You need to feel it. Look at the weapons again.”

So Eddie does. He looks back at the rack and slowly draws his eyes over the weapons where they’re displayed like some brutal art exhibit. He tries to imagine himself fighting with each one, but he can’t. In his head he sees himself dropping his chosen weapon, or sees it being taken from him as he struggles. Sees himself being hit, stabbed, beaten. And there’s nothing he can do about it.

“Relax,” Richie reminds him, voice pitched low and soft. “Relax and feel it.”

Suddenly, out of nowhere, Eddie’s eyes focus on a small sword at the far end of the rack, almost hidden next to a huge scythe. It’s small and slim, barely more than a dagger, but there’s something elegant about it. Neat and simple. And it looks sharp. Like the thorn on a fairytale rose. Like it would make blood well on the tip of his finger if he touched it.

“That one,” he says.

And this time he means it.

Richie follows his line of sight, and Eddie can almost feel the approval radiating from him. From this strange, older man in his pink shirt patterned with wiener dogs wearing hotdog buns. With his dark hair and weird glasses, and his habit of telling awful jokes.

“Very good,” Richie says. “Let’s try that.”

**Prompt #4 Candy**

It all happens in the small pocket of time between advanced math and the dirge of gym. Jimmy’s dragging his heels, hanging back in the bathrooms on the second floor, trying to delay the inevitable jeers of all the boys in his class. As they mock him for his weak knees and his protruding ribs, pinging their towels at him and asking him how small his dick is, if it’s even big enough to get hard.

But Jimmy knows it’s coming. After years of falling victim for his chronic acne, and his high-pitched voice, for sometimes just existing, he’s come to expect it.

What he doesn’t expect is to be cornered by Richie Tozier, the weird loudmouth with the dark eyes and the wide grin, who laughed like a jackal at his own vulgar jokes and could outsmart all of their teachers without even trying.

Jimmy hadn’t spoken to Richie in more than two years, had done nothing to warrant the boy’s wrath. So he doesn’t know why he’s here now, wedged back against the window as Richie grins down at him. The wacky kid with buck teeth and bottle glasses who had somehow transformed into this tall, moody, striking teen with the cheekbones that could cut glass. Who all the girls secretly looked at as he walked down the hallway.

He asks, “W-what do you want, Richie?”

Richie grins at him like they’re friends. “I just thought we could catch up, Jimmy. I’ve seen you hanging out with your new girlfriend.”

Jimmy swallows hard. Was that what this was about?

“Oh yeah…”

“ _Oh yeah_ ,” Richie mocks in a high, broken falsetto. “What, you think no one had noticed? That one of the hottest girls at school is suddenly hanging off your dick and no one would say anything?”

Jimmy shrugs, but his mouth has gone bone dry. He’d been dating Cindy for the last three weeks and it had sent ripples through school. Everyone was shocked. That someone as beautiful and popular as Cindy would even talk to a dweeb like Jimmy, let alone fall head over heels for him. At lunchtime she now ditched all her friends to sit in a corner of the cafeteria with him, and after school walked home with his hand in hers. At the weekend, they got ice cream and walked to the lake and sat in his backyard, and the entire time she looked at him with her big blue eyes, and told him she never wanted anything else. 

“It’s just curious, that’s all,” Richie continues, eyes glinting. “Pretty sure she hated your fucking guts a few months ago.”

“Things change, Richie.”

“Is that right,“ he replies, his dark eyebrows raised mockingly.

And Jimmy’s had enough. He gets enough shit from jock assholes as it is, without a weird fucking kid like Richie joining in.

“Richie, I really have to get to class. Gym is starting and if I’m late-”

Richie pushes him back against the wall with one hand to his chest. The skin on the back of his hand is mottled, _scarred_ , and Jimmy’s chest tightens. The skin looks like it was run over with a sheet of barbed wire. 

“Hold your horses,” Richie says, “we haven’t finished catching up yet.”

Jimmy blurts, “Are you… are you jealous or something?”

“Nice try, dipshit, but no, I’m not jealous that you’re with a blonde airhead like Cindy. I need to know how you did it.”

Jimmy feels the bottom drop out of his stomach.

“What?”

“Come on,” Richie says, his mouth unfurling into a slow, smoky grin, “don’t wuss out on me now.”

“Cindy has feelings for me.”

Richie barks and rolls his eyes. “Unless you’re seriously packing down there, I doubt that.”

“I mean it, we have a real connection.”

The good humour drops from Richie’s face.

“ _Bullshit_ ,” he hisses, making Jimmy flinch. “I know you did something. No way would she even fucking _look_ at a little creep like you if you hadn’t done something to her. So you’re either paying her, but I know your parents are piss poor so it’s not that. Maybe you’re blackmailing her, but you’re too pussy for that too. So it has to be something else.”

“What do you mean?” Jimmy splutters, feeling like he’s going to wet himself. 

He’d heard things about Richie over the last few years. That he got his scars from some unknown childhood trauma, that he’d been kidnapped and tortured by a crazy man. Jimmy didn’t know how true any of that was, but he couldn’t deny the mad glint in Richie’s eyes. That his smiles were always slightly too manic to be good-natured. That when he laughed it sent chills through him. 

“Are you going to beat me up? Tell Cindy? Try to reverse the spell?”

He regrets it the second it’s out his mouth, but Richie’s eyes shine, like he’d guessed the twist in a movie before everyone else. 

“I knew it,” he says.

Panic grips Jimmy; it catapults him halfway across the bathroom, but Richie is too fast for him. Before he can make it to the door, he feels a hand on his backpack and a second later he’s being thrown back towards the sinks. He crashes back, stumbling, and almost falls to the floor. And Richie just stares at him, a dead heat lighting up his eyes. One brown and one blue. 

“Please, let me go, Richie,” Jimmy says, half crumpled against the sinks. He cringes at the whimpering note in his voice, how close he sounds to begging.

“I don’t think so.”

“Why? Are you going to blackmail me?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“What do you _want_? I don’t have anything to give you. I don’t have money.”

Richie’s lips draw back in a snarl. “Are you really that fucking stupid? I’m here because I want you to do it for me too.”

Jimmy blinks at him. He didn’t think Richie would have any problems with girls. Not with the way they had started to look at him.

His mind flicks through the girls in their year, tries to settle on anyone Richie might like. But he’d never seen Richie pay attention to any girls he knew. Come to think of it, he didn’t think Richie ever had a girlfriend.

“You do…? On who?”

Richie doesn’t hesitate as he says, “Eddie Kaspbrak.”

Jimmy feels his mouth drop open. He says, “You’re… you’re a fag?”

Richie’s face goes dark, and Jimmy’s vision blacks out as Richie’s fist smashes into the side of his mouth. He staggers back, his head cracking against the wall, and distantly he hears himself cry out as a searing bolt of pain shoots through his skull.

When he comes to, his vision blotting hazily at the corners, Richie’s wiping his bloody knuckles against his jeans. 

“Maybe we should try that again,” he says, tone mild, like he hadn’t just punched Jimmy in the face. “But if you say that fucking word one more time, I’ll push you out the window.”

Jimmy’s eyes prickle hot as the blood drips down his mouth. He thinks he might cry.

Richie notices and he sneers at him. “God, you’re such a fucking pussy. I could do a lot worse than that, you know.”

“I don’t know if I can do the spell again.”

And he didn’t. Jimmy had found the spell in an old tome he’d found in a dark basement bookstore two towns over. A place he heard whispers about. He hadn’t even thought the spell would work. But it had. He’d walked out of his house the next morning and Cindy had been on his doorstep, so happy and eager to see him Jimmy initially thought it had been a joke. But it hadn’t. She was besotted.

Richie looks unamused as he pulls an old lighter out of his pocket. 

“You better remember,” he says, as he flicks it on, the orange flame making Jimmy jump. “Or I’ll have to help you jog your memory.”

“I… I guess I could try,” he mumbles as he watches the flame burn in Richie’s hand.

Richie shakes his head. “You’ll need to do better than that.”

He flicks the lighter off and on again. 

“Have you been burned before? I read once that being set on fire is the most excruciating pain you can ever feel. I wonder if Cindy will still feel the same about you if she can’t recognise you. Spell or no spell.”

Desperation claws at Jimmy’s throat and he quickly blurts, “Okay, I’ll do it, I will.”

Richie flicks the lighter off. “Good,” he says. 

And a part of Jimmy, though surprised, gets it, because Eddie was beautiful. Over the last year he’d blossomed from a sick little boy into something slender and sweet, with long tanned legs and the thickest lashes Jimmy had ever seen. There was a rumour going around school that Eddie was prettier than most girls, and that they all hated him for it. Not that he seemed to notice. He went to his classes and ran with the track team, and was always quiet and serene, apart from the times he saw Richie. When his expression went icy and his tone turned brittle.

Jimmy still can’t help but ask, “Why him?”

"Because he’s everything,” Richie replies. 

Jimmy doesn’t know what to say to that, so instead he says, “I’ll need something of his. For the spell to bind to him.”

“No problem.”

Richie takes a small locket of dark hair out of his pocket. Jimmy stares at it. He doesn’t want to know how Richie got it.

“There are risks, I need you to know that,” he says as Richie hands it to him. 

Richie just stares at him, looking bored. “I don’t really care.”

“But it might not work. Or it could go wrong. Sometimes these spells… sometimes they don’t turn out the way we expect them to.”

And Jimmy was telling the truth. He’d heard some terrible things. Sometimes the spell didn’t take, and sometimes it took too well, driving the enchanted lover to the edges of hysteria, so obsessed with the object of their affections that they couldn’t eat or sleep. That they couldn’t even function without being with the person who had cast the spell.

“Just do whatever it takes,” Richie says, his brown eye so dark it looked almost black. “I want him to be crazy for me. So crazy that he needs me, all the time. I don’t want him to think of anything else but me. Got it?”

“Got it,” Jimmy says quietly. And for some reason he feels ashamed. 

He jumps again when he feels Richie clap his hand down on his shoulder.

“There we go, that wasn’t so hard was it? You have a week. Or I’ll tell everyone what you’ve done. And your cute new girlfriend won’t be able to stand the sight of you.” He grins at Jimmy. "Sound good?”

“Yeah,“ Jimmy says, head nodding stupidly even as his stomach churns. “Sounds good.”

“Cool, I’m glad we’re on the same page.”

On his way out, Richie gestures to Jimmy’s nose. “You might want to clean that up by the way. Get a cotton bud up there.”

In the silence following Richie’s departure, Jimmy stares at himself in the mirror and doesn’t recognise the pale, pleading face staring back at him. He thinks he might be sick, but instead he mops up the blood oozing from his nose and goes to gym.

A week later, he hides around a corner as he watches Richie hand Eddie the candy: a little bag of pink love hearts knotted at the top with a ribbon. Inside, one of the love hearts is special. Nestled inside the sugar is a drop of lamb’s blood, crushed belladonna, and the membrane of a baby bird. The potion Jimmy had made and injected into the candy the night before, the potion that would turn Eddie’s blood molten for Richie.

Eddie asks, "Why, Richie?" 

"Can’t I treat you, baby?” Richie replies.

“Don’t call me that please.”

Eddie looks at the candy dubiously at first, but eventually he can’t resist, and he takes it from Richie with a mumbled thanks.

Jimmy has a thought of ducking round the corner and running down the hall, slapping the candy from Eddie’s hands just in time, of saving him. But he doesn’t. Because he’s a coward. So he hangs back and watches instead. Watches as Eddie takes the special love heart, the one that’s pinker and plumper than the rest, and pops it into his mouth. 

The change is instantaneous. Eddie’s body goes suddenly taut, as if his limbs are being pulled together by a string, and his eyes go bright and glossy as he stares up at Richie. The frown between his eyes melts away, and in its place his expression softens, his mouth pink and lax as he mouths Richie’s name. 

Jimmy feels like he’s going to throw up. He spins around and starts walking away just as he hears Eddie say, “ _Richie_ ,” like he’s seeing the other boy for the first time. Like Richie is a bright, burning sphere of sunshine in an endless night. He walks down the hallway and all the way home. Tosses and turns all night with half-snatched dreams.

The next day as he's walking home from school, he comes across the two boys making out in the woods. Jimmy freezes on the spot like a rabbit.

Eddie’s mouth is so wet and red as Richie bites at it, his hands grabbing Eddie through his jeans while the smaller boy gasps and claws at Richie like he was drowning and Richie was his only chance of catching a breath. They stand there, kissing, moaning, moulded to each other like they were a single person instead of two. And Jimmy knows it's wrong but he doesn't do anything. And when Richie’s eyes meet his over Eddie’s head, swimming with mirth and something like greed, Jimmy stumbles and runs. He runs and runs, and not once does he ever think to look back.

Two months later, when he sees the murder story leering at him from the front page of his father's newspaper, about how Richie and Eddie had murdered Eddie's mother when she tried to separate them, Jimmy couldn't say he was too surprised.

**Prompt #5 Undead**

On the sixth night of the third week after they destroy IT, Richie returns to Eddie.

The Losers all try to stop him. On that first night back at the Town House, Eddie breaks down at the bar, telling them that there had to be a way. That there must be a spell in one of Mike’s books that could reverse what had happened. That they at least had to try.

“He died by mystical means… that means we can bring him back,” he begs, while they all look at him pitifully. Even Stanley, who had understood Richie in a way the others never could, turns his face away.

“Think about what you’re saying, Eddie,” Ben says, eyes dark and wounded as he cradles a glass of whiskey. “People aren’t supposed to come back like that. It could go wrong.“

“He’s gone, baby,” Bev agrees softly, placing her hand on Eddie’s arm so gently it hardly feels like anything at all. It was nothing like Richie’s rough, boisterous touch. “We all have to accept that and move on.”

But Eddie was unshakeable, inconsolable.

He won’t let himself be pulled into Bev’s hug, and he refuses to take part in the ritualistic sharing of memories. Reminiscing about bug-eyed glasses and skinned knees; about the plethora of voices, or the way Richie had once held a baseball bat so bravely. The little monster slayer. Instead all Eddie could think about was the body that was currently on ice in Derry’s small morgue down the street. The body that had once been Richie’s, until the clown tore a hole through his chest. Right now his lips were probably turning blue. 

The thought has Eddie staggering from the bar with tears stinging his eyes, ignoring the Losers as they call out to him, so he can lock himself away in Richie’s room. In the dark he peels out of his clothes and folds himself into a clean t-shirt from Richie’s bag. It’s an old tour shirt from 2012 and it’s so big on Eddie it almost swallows him whole. 

For a single, overwhelming moment Eddie wishes he really could be swallowed up, that he’d chosen to stay down in the sewers with Richie’s body. That they had disappeared into the earth together. 

But instead he was here. And all he could do was ache as Richie’s body started to slowly disintegrate down in the morgue.

Eddie doesn’t know how much time passes before Bill comes to him. Bill, who knocks on Eddie’s door until he answers, wrapped in Richie’s t-shirt and nothing else.

After a second’s hesitation Eddie invites him in, and the two men stand by the door, the silence between them growing like a cancer, until Bill reaches out and places his hand on Eddie’s tear-sticky cheek.

“I need to tell you something,” he says, voice on the verge of his old stutter. “I need you to know that I love you. I always did, even when we were kids. And I can’t have you leave without you knowing that.”

And Eddie would be lying if he said he didn’t consider it. That he didn’t consider letting Bill press him down to the mattress and spread his thighs open. That for a moment he didn’t think about how it would feel for Bill to open him up. First with his fingers, and then his cock. To push inside him in the way Eddie had always daydreamed about as a boy with his bed sheets bunched up between his legs. Maybe Bill could help fill the emptiness that Eddie had felt opening up inside him from the moment they left the sewers.

But then he thinks of Richie’s body, how he looked when he died, what he said, and he pulls away. Out of Bill’s warm embrace and back to the bed, the sheets still creased with the imprint of Richie’s slumbering body.

Eddie fixes his eyes on the bed and says, "It doesn’t matter, because I don’t love you.”

Behind him he can almost feel the way Bill’s face falls. Can almost feel the hurt noise Bill makes in his own throat.

“Okay,” Bill says shakily. "You need time, I understand that. Maybe we should talk about this again tomorrow.“

Sorrow makes Eddie’s tongue sharp as he looks over his shoulder and says, “I don’t need _time_. I need Richie. And I sure as hell don’t need you. You’re half the man Richie ever was.”

The look on Bill’s face feels like a knife, but he can’t bring himself to care. All he wants is to be left alone and a moment later he is, as Bill slips out the door as quietly as he walked in. Richie would never have done that, Eddie thinks. He'd have made a racket. He'd never take no for an answer.

Richie had been the only person who’d never treated Eddie like he was made from glass.

Later, in the dead patch of night just after 3am, Eddie pulls on a pair of jeans and leaves the Town House. He leaves behind most of his things: his clothes, his pills, his toiletries. Suddenly, nothing really matters. Not his last Valium, and not the pot of moisturizer that cost more than Myra’s entire make-up cabinet. Definitely not the sad little life that marked his entire childhood in Derry. He doesn’t even leave a note to say goodbye. 

Before heading to the airport he breaks into Mike’s room above the library to rifle through all the books the man had collected over the years. Half wrecks the place to find what he needs, the spell that will bring Richie back. When he finds it he makes a noise he doesn’t recognise, something like a sob but also a groan. Half desperate, half wild. He clutches the book so hard he almost rips the page.

A frantic Mike emerges in the doorway just as Eddie turns to leave. His eyes dart down to the book in his arms and they grow shockingly wide.

“Eddie, stop. Think about what you’re doing.”

“You can’t stop me,” Eddie says, pressing the book tighter to his chest, against the stupid t-shirt with Richie’s cartoon face. 

“You need to put the book down. You’re not thinking right. You can’t do this, sweetheart, Richie wouldn’t want you to.”

The sound of Richie’s name breaks through the haze. A second later Eddie’s pulling the gun out of his back pocket. The one he had found hidden in Mike’s old things.

He points it at his old friend and says, “Don’t tell me what Richie would want.”

Mike’s hands dart up. “Eddie-”

 _“Don’t talk,”_ Eddie snaps. “And if you come near me I’ll kill you. I’m not joking, I’ll do it.”

“Please don’t do this,” Mike says. “This isn’t like you. You’re exhausted, and you’re angry. I understand, and all I want to do is help you. But please put the gun down.”

Eddie doesn’t put the gun down but he does cock it, even with his fingers trembling.

“Don’t tell me what to do. All my life people have only ever told me what to do.”

“You’ll regret it,” Mike says quietly. “You think you can just snap your fingers and bring him back? Things like this always require a price.”

But Eddie won’t be swayed. Not now.

“Step away from the door,” he says. "And don’t even think about coming after me. I’m done with this fucking cemetery of a town.”

As soon as Mike steps aside, Eddie rushes past him, the book pressed to his chest. He makes sure not to look at Mike’s face. At the hurt and disappointment that's surely etched there.

In the cold night air outside, Eddie hardly feels the tears on his face.

Eddie leaves Maine for the last time that morning on the first flight to New York. Not once does he look out the window.

When he emerges in New York, Myra comes to meet him in the airport, her face swimming in tears, her chest heaving. She clasps Eddie to her, cooing over him, telling him how worried she was, how she had called the police, that she thought he was dead. And usually Eddie would feel contrite, would try to comfort her, but all he feels is that emptiness inside him grow. 

Eddie can’t wait. The next day he completes the ritual when Myra is out food shopping. He spreads the red sand in a wide circle on their plush cream carpet and sprinkles the crushed animal bones in each key place. In the middle of the circle he places Richie’s glasses, still smudged with his blood. Then he recites the incantation from the book, not once stumbling over the strange words.

Myra finds him an hour later, passed out on their bed, a huge crimson stain half scrubbed out of the living room carpet, and demands to know what happened. But Eddie only mumbles that he can’t remember.

Because what was the point of trying to explain. It hadn't worked anyway.

That afternoon Myra makes an appointment with a top therapist in Manhattan, saying her husband's suffering from a severe bout of melancholy.

There’s no sign of Richie that day, or the next, or the next. Eddie thought Richie would have magically appeared after the ritual. He’d expected lights and noise, like in a magician’s show, and that in a big puff of smoke Richie would be restored. But nothing happened. And maybe, Eddie thinks as cries into his pillow, he doesn’t deserve it. He’d only ever been cruel and callous to Richie, maybe he doesn’t deserve to get him back.

He waits and he dreams. Every night as he lies next to Mya, he dreams about Richie for the first time in years. He dreams of the two of them as children, touching hands and sharing ice-cream; and as teenagers driving around in Richie’s old truck with the radio blasting, his legs draped over Richie’s lap as the other boy ghosted his fingers over his calves. And he dreams of a life they never had. Of first kisses, and love confessions, and slow bursts of love making during that sleepy time of morning when the sky turns milky just before dawn.

Every morning he wakes up with wet cheeks. And the emptiness continues to grow.

Over the next few days Eddie gets quieter and more withdrawn. He refuses to go back to work and he doesn’t swallow any of the pills that Myra tries to force on him, spitting them into the toilet as soon as he can get away from her. She’s worried about him, he knows that, but he can’t bring himself to care.

He also doesn’t care about all the missed phone calls from the Losers, or the string of texts and voice messages begging him to reconsider, telling him to call. He half types a text to Bev saying, _when will it start to feel better? It didnt work anyway, i guess i cant do anything right_ but it lies half-written on his phone for two days before he deletes it. In the end he blocks their numbers and throws his phone into his bedside drawer.

But then, towards the end of the third week, Eddie wakes up and something feels off. 

He can’t describe it, he just feels strange. Tense, the way he always felt before running. And slightly sick.

That morning he finds himself watching the news as he chews on his thumbnail. A nervous little tick he hasn’t fallen back into since his late 20s. But there’s no impending catastrophe, no signal of anything ominous. He even scans the local Derry news on his iPad but finds nothing of note beyond a couple of farm cows found brutalised, torn open, their guts hanging out. A local nut job was blamed and arrested. 

Just as he’s about to put the iPad down and make his egg-white omelette for breakfast, his eyes catch on a small story: a break-in at the Derry morgue. It’s dated as the same week that the Losers were in Derry, just two days after he disappeared. He realises, with a quiver, that it was the day after the incantation, the ritual to bring Richie back. 

Eddie places his iPad down and goes to the bathroom, where he sits in the bath in the way he did as a child, when he was trying to calm the panic attack he felt growing under his skin. He sits there until he feels like his heart isn’t about to burst out of his skin and can go about his day again.

 _It doesn’t mean anything_ , he says to himself. _Break-ins happen all the time. It doesn’t mean anything at all._

That evening he makes a simple dinner of grilled chicken and asparagus with a white wine sauce. But he can hardly eat. That feeling of unease had stayed with Eddie all day, and as the sky darkened outside it had only grown. Crawling up his throat, seizing his stomach.

Across the table he can hear Myra talking, but she’s muffled, like she’s talking underwater. 

“A man was killed just a few blocks from us, Eddie, did you hear? It’s awful, apparently he was found _ravaged_ , torn open.”

“Oh,” Eddie murmurs. 

Myra frowns. “Are you even _listening_?”

And Eddie isn’t, but he nods his head.

After he’s pushed his food around his plate like a toddler for a few more minutes, Eddie tells Myra he needs some fresh air, and before she can argue he slips out into the garden. 

He ducks around the veranda outside. When he’s sure he’s completely hidden, he pulls a crumpled pack of cigarettes out his pocket. They’re not his, of course, they’re Richie’s. A pack he’d taken from his room at the Town House when he left that night. He hasn’t been able to smoke one yet, has only lifted one to his lips when Myra wasn’t around so he could pretend to taste Richie’s lips on it. But he suddenly wants to smoke one now, lighting it quickly so he can take a puff. The first one he’s ever taken. He hopes it’ll help him feel closer to Richie. But all it does is make his eyes water instantly and fill his throat with an acrid burn, bending him forwards to retch. It’s _disgusting_.

Eddie throws the cigarette away and crushes it into the ground with a grimace, wondering how Richie did that every single day. How that could ever be enjoyable. But Richie had always been an excruciating anomaly, even when they were kids.

As he turns to walk back into the house, planning to go straight to the bathroom and wash the taste of smoke out of his mouth, the back of his neck prickles. Like he’s being watched. Eddie whips around, expecting to see a figure at the end of his yard. Maybe a dark silhouette half-hidden by the trees. But there’s nothing there. Not a flutter of a bird. Not the bright eyes of a cat skulking in the hedge. Nothing. And after a moment, Eddie swipes a hand over the back of his neck and makes his way back into the house. 

Inside, Myra asks him what’s wrong, that he looks like he’s seen a ghost. The saying makes Eddie laugh, forcing out a strange, high-pitched noise that has her reeling back in her chair. But Eddie doesn’t stick around to apologise. He goes to their room and collapses into bed, suddenly exhausted. 

He thinks of the text he’d half-written to Bev. _When will it start to feel better?_ And a voice that sounded exactly like Pennywise’s rings in his head. _Never, Eddie baby! Haven’t you realised that? It never gets better!!_

A noise wakes Eddie up that night. He’d only fallen into a shallow sleep, so the noise is enough to make him bolt up in bed, his heart racing. Next to him, Myra snores heavily, almost eclipsing the noise from downstairs, but Eddie’s ears still prick up, seeking out the source of the noise. He hears it again: the tinkle of broken glass, followed by a loud crunch, like someone is walking over it.

Fear makes Eddie recoil against the headboard. But he can’t ignore it. He slips out of bed and into the hallway, peering into the dark downstairs. After a moment, he swallows the sick feeling in his mouth and descends the stairs, feeling much too like a young woman from a gothic horror film.

It’s cold down in the hallway, and he quickly realises it’s because the front door is open. He pauses by the stairway, his body going taut. No, the door wasn’t open. It was _broken_ , hanging flimsily from its hinges, shards of glass and wood on the floor. 

But there was more too: smudged, muddy footprints tracking from the front door into the hallway, like someone had broken down the door and dragged their feet inside. 

Eddie’s trying to mentally catalogue how far the phone is, how long it’ll take him to dart into the living room and call the police to report a break-in when the back of his neck prickles again. Behind him he hears the heavy exhale of someone breathing.

He spins around fast, heartbeat ratcheting up like a series of gunshots, and that’s when he sees him. Richie. Standing in the doorway to the kitchen watching him. 

“ _Richie_ ,” he gasps.

And it was Richie, somehow. Despite the blue tinge to his skin, and the black tracing of veins skittering down his neck and arms. Even though he didn’t have his glasses, and his clothes lay in filthy shreds around his arms and legs, revealing large tantalising glimpses of the thick muscles at his thighs, the tendons popping like lines of rock on his arms. He’d look like a centrefold ripped from a woman’s magazine if it wasn’t for the mud streaking down his legs and the scabbed chest wound dissecting his chest, right where the clown had pierced him. 

“Eddie,” Richie says thickly, like his throat is clogged with dirt. “I’m here.”

“What…” Eddie stumbles, breath hitching. “What are you doing here?”

And he knows it’s a stupid question, but he doesn’t know what else to say. Because he feels like he’s about to pass out, the pulse at his neck frozen in fear.

“I came back for you,” Richie says. And his eyes are so shockingly blue. Bluer than they had ever been when he was alive. So blue they were almost silver, electrifying the air. 

Eddie thinks, _All the way here? From Derry?_

“But you’re dead,” he murmurs. 

But Richie shakes his head. “I’m not. Or at least not anymore. I remember the sewers. The clown. And then nothing. Blackness. Until I was pulled out… by you.”

Eddie feels faint. “By me?” 

Richie nods, and starts walking towards him. As he does, the smell hits Eddie. It’s a damp smell, like a puddle of water, or the smell at the bottom of a well. Like mud left behind after a downpour of rain. And beneath that the faint smell of rot, like fruit that had started to turn bad.

“Yes, by you,” Richie says. “Your voice, it pulled me out of the dark. You were calling to me. I woke up and I knew I had to find you again. That I couldn’t rest until I did.”

 _The spell_ , Eddie thinks drunkenly as Richie comes close, _it had worked._

“Richie,” he moans, feeling everything well up inside him. Everything he had repressed over the last three weeks. The grief. The rage. The _yearning_. All surging and crashing over him where he’d forced himself to go numb. It overtakes him completely, and Eddie thinks he might fall to the floor. 

He starts to cry as he says, “Richie, I did everything I could. I wanted to save you. But the clown, it was too much. You were already gone and I coudn’t- and I wanted to die too, I just wanted to curl up and fucking _die-”_

Richie shushes him, hand coming up to curl in the hair at the back of his head.

“You did save me, baby, don’t you see? I’m only here now because of you.”

That’s when Eddie notices the red staining on Richie’s chest. He blinks. And suddenly he remembers the story of the dismembered cows, how their blood had been drained. And the murder Myra had mentioned. The man a few blocks down. He had been found gutted, torn open from his sternum to his groin. How his viscera had been missing.

And Eddie realises it’s not staining at all. It’s a thick layer of gore splattered over his chest hair. His hands are mattered in it too, all the way to his wrists, like he’d sunk his hands into something and pulled out the meat.

“Richie,” he says. “What have you done?”

They’re interrupted by the creak of the bottom stair, and Myra’s voice as she calls out, “Eddie, what’s going on? Eddie, are you all right? I heard voices.”

“Myra,” he says, turning to see her staring in shock at their broken front door.

“Myra, don’t-”

But that’s when she sees Richie. This strange man standing in her hallway with muddy feet and blood on his chest. With his blue skin and black veins and strange silver eyes.

She starts to scream.

Richie is on her in an instant. He rushes past Eddie, pushing him to the wall as he dashes down the hallway. He knocks Myra down to the floor and as she opens her mouth on a fresh scream, his teeth land at the skin of her neck, tearing it open. He rips her apart, first at her throat, her screams gurgling thick with blood, and then at her chest. His hands come down and he rips her apart like she’s nothing more than cellophane.

Once she’s split open, Richie dips his head down and feasts on her blood and bone. He looks like a starved, feral animal gorging itself on a bounty, and the noises he makes as he rips the meat from the pulsing cavity at her chest isn’t human. Eddie realises, faintly, that he’s eating Myra’s heart, that the blood dripping down his chin is from her arteries, and he trembles.

Mike’s words ring in his head. _Things like this always require a price._

Myra dies quickly, her screams stuttering out, eyes going glassy, but Richie doesn’t stop eating for a long time.

Terror roots Eddie to the spot. He can’t run, he can’t scream. He can only lean back against the wall and stare. At the thing that used to be his best friend, the man he loved, eat his wife open from the inside.

The next thing he knows, Richie is rising, and he’s coming towards Eddie, a blue fire raging in his eyes. Eddie tries to scramble away, but Richie’s too fast for him, and the two men tumble to the floor in a tangle of limbs.

Richie presses him to the floor, his mouth at Eddie’s neck, weight crushing him down, and Eddie thinks, _This is it. This is always how it was going to end._

But Richie doesn’t kill him. He doesn’t tear his throat out or drink his blood. Instead Richie kisses him. Presses the softest, sweetest kiss to the base of his neck.

“I love you, Eddie,” he whispers when he pulls back, eyes bright, mouth clotted with gore. “I love you and I came back for you.”

Eddie blinks up at him, his chest heaving. He thinks dizzily, _Richie, it’s really you._ And before he can stop himself, his hands are flying up to grab Richie by the shoulders and he’s pulling the other man down. Their mouths meet in a fierce clash of lips and teeth, more a bite than a kiss, Richie’s tongue stabbing into him. And even though Eddie winces at the thick taste of Myra’s blood, at the hint of decay in his mouth, he still tastes so much like Richie that Eddie throbs.

“I waited for you,” he pants in the short gap between their lips. “I waited so long.”

“I’m here,” Richie says hotly. “I’m here and I’m never leaving you alone again.”

And Eddie had imagined what their first time would be like at countless moments over the last few weeks. If it would be fast or slow. If Richie would be rough with him or gentle. But he never thought it would be anything like this, with Richie tearing his clothes off him and touching every inch of his skin. He never knew Richie would look like this, with this dark, hungry expression, as he thumbs Eddie’s nipples to sore pink peaks and sucks a huge, dark bruise over his heart. He never thought Richie would act so desperately, as his hand disappears between Eddie’s legs to open him up, fingers wet with spit and blood. Eddie never knew it would feel this much like being claimed, like being consumed

When Richie pushes inside him, shoving his filthy jeans down and pulling Eddie’s hips up so he can slot his cock against Eddie’s small opening, it hurts. Eddie’s never had a man inside him before, and it hurts so much. It’s agony. Richie’s hard cock tearing up into him in a searing, insistent push. But Eddie still arches his back off the floor, trying to get every inch of Richie inside him, feeling the white-hot pain sealing up all the numb, dead spots inside him. Richie fucks him like that, like they’re animals, hard into the floor as he growls against him. He ruts against Eddie, pushing his cock as deeply as it can go on every thrust, Eddie’s pained moans never slowing him. He fucks Eddie like he’s trying to disappear inside him, and the thought only makes Eddie harder, makes him cum fast as he whines like a broken toy. 

In the distance a phone rings. But Eddie can’t hear it. Because between the taste of Richie in his mouth, and the feel of his cock inside him, he can’t bring himself to care. And as Richie sinks his cold teeth into Eddie’s bottom lip and groans, “You’re mine, you’re _fucking_ mine,” Eddie finally feels okay. He feels something like peace. For the first time in 27 years he’s right where he needs to be.

**Prompt #6 Pumpkin**

Eddie had lived in denial for a long time. It was a denial that had clung to him since he’d been a little boy. Never letting himself get dirty. Being scared of falling ill. Not letting his eyes linger too much on the handsome men he saw in the pharmacy or at the grocery store. And never letting himself enjoy food. Because food meant gluttony. It meant allergies and intolerances. It meant turning out like his mother, who he watched grow bigger and rounder every year.

He spent years like that, not letting himself enjoy anything. Convincing himself he was so frail that all he could eat were egg whites and leafy greens or the leanest chicken with a plate of boiled vegetables. No gluten. No sugar. Hardly any fats or carbs. For more than 20 years he was austere as a Puritan. And he told himself it was for the best. 

Until Richie, that was. Until they had finally defeated the clown. 

Things started to change then. Slowly at first but surely. Eddie left his sham of a marriage; he came out of the closet; he admitted to Richie one night, as the two of them shared a bowl of ice cream by Richie's swimming pool, that he was in love with him. And then, after he let himself try a slice of challah one day at a coffee shop downtown, toasted gently and spread with honey, Eddie let himself fall. 

First, Eddie made banana bread using some old, overripe bananas on their kitchen table. Then he baked chewy oatmeal cookies one morning after he’d served up their overnight oats. Before Eddie knew it, he was cooking up a storm: he ordered cookbooks, watched videos, bookmarked blogs. And he started to love the act of cooking. Looked forward to planning out their meals and going grocery shopping. A typical day included fluffy ricotta pancakes in the morning; a cheese and spinach quiche with salad in the afternoon, chicken thighs baked in white wine, olive oil and parmigiano reggiano in the evening. And then, teasingly, a silky mousse or sliver of cheesecake. 

Richie, who had the biggest appetite out of anyone Eddie had ever known, scarfed down everything Eddie made as quickly as a dog. He'd been happy to see Eddie enjoy food more and actively encouraged his cooking.

What Eddie hadn't expected was how sexy Richie had found it. How he watched Eddie cook with his blue eyes lit up with some kind of mischief. Sometimes coming up behind him so he could trail his hands over Eddie’s hips as he cooked, snaking a hand around his chest to tweak a nipple through his t-shirt, or to press the flat of his palm to Eddie’s lower stomach in a vaguely territorial touch that had Eddie half-panting as he stirred. 

Eddie always kicked Richie out eventually, swatting him away with a wooden spoon or elbowing him in the stomach. But it didn't stop Eddie from growing ruby-cheeked or getting hard in his pants. Something Richie definitely noticed as he chuckled and said, "You feeling okay there, baby?"

Which is probably why he should have seen this coming. Not that he thought it would happen that morning, as he prepared a homemade pumpkin pie for the first time. That he’d end up pushed up against the counter in their spacious, airy kitchen with Richie's jeans shoved down his thighs and his cock balls deep inside Eddie's ass. 

The pie looks good. Eddie had completed the crust, and he’s busy with the filling: mixing eggs, spices and fresh pumpkin puree in a bowl. Or at least he was trying to. Because Richie’s cock was nudging his prostate, and every time Eddie tried to focus on what he was doing, Richie would tilt his hips slightly and brush up against his sweet spot.

Richie had spent the whole time cooing into his ear, telling him what a good boy he was, as he stroked Eddie's hips like he was a skittish, easily frightened domestic pet.

The whisk clatters to the counter as Eddie lets out a high-pitched moan. 

“I can’t do it,” he says, his head hanging down between his shoulders. 

Richie leans in and swipes his tongue against the bare skin at his feverish nape.

“I think you can,” he says. “Come on, baby, you’re doing so well.”

Richie hadn’t fucked him that morning like he usually did, making the excuse that he had an important Zoom meeting. That he had to get ready for some presentation with the big suits about the future of his show. Eddie had said okay, that made sense, but he couldn’t help but feel slightly disappointed as Richie kissed him on the cheek and disappeared out the room. 

But it turns out this was why. Richie had been saving it for _this_. 

Eddie tries not to moan at how deep Richie is inside him. There’s nothing between them, not even a layer of latex, and it’s almost too much. Richie’s cock is stretching him wide - with a shiver, he can imagine how obscene his hole must look around Richie’s cock - and on each small thrust into him, Eddie can feel Richie’s balls brush against his thighs.

“I hate you,” he mutters as his arms tremble, hands clenched so hard around the edge of the counter that they're china white.

Richie tsks against his neck. “That’s not a very nice thing to say to your finance, is it? When he takes such good care of you.”

Eddie laughs, and it sounds manic. “Is this what you think taking care of me looks like?”

He expects a joke, or a witty retort. Instead what he gets is Richie’s fingers tightening to a bone-bruising grip on his hips. Eddie would cry out, goes to, except Richie shoots out a hand and shoves three thick fingers into Eddie’s mouth, stifling the sound. 

With a hint of steel Richie says, “Why don’t you stop talking back and do as you’re told?”

Eddie starts to say “okay”, only he can’t, not with Richie’s fingers in his mouth, how they press down his tongue. So he nods his head as much as he can to get the point across. He’ll make the pie. He’ll be good. 

“Good,” Richie says.

He pushes his fingers deeper into Eddie’s mouth, getting them wet to the knuckle, the force of it making Eddie gag. It feels like a warning. That Eddie better be good because he's not in the mood to play. Then he pulls them out as fast as he’d pushed them in.

Eddie feels winded, the corners of his mouth feel bruised, but he picks up the whisk again and starts swirling the filling. It’s not as fast as he’d usually do it, but it’s the best he can do. Behind him, Richie starts to pick up the pace a little, pulling out and pushing his cock deeper into Eddie’s needy, clenching hole. He hits his prostate again, making him arch back against the tall line of Richie’s body. 

“R-Richie, I can’t,” he says, on the verge of dropping the whisk again. Of abandoning the pie and begging Richie to fuck him. 

But he knows that won't do.

From behind him Richie says, “Why don’t you shut the fuck up? I thought you could be good? Do you want me to pull out?”

Eddie shakes his head. He doesn't. Even though it was maddening: the torturous, slow push of Richie’s cock inside him, the feeling of his jean zipper rubbing up against his ass, the drip of precome at the end of Eddie’s dick where he’d grown flushed and hard against the counter. But the thought of Richie pulling out and leaving him there while he went to the bedroom to jerk off was even worse. He has a thought of Richie coming all over their bedsheets, of wasting his come instead of depositing it deep inside Eddie where it belonged, and he almost whines.

“No Richie, I want it so bad, please. Please don’t pull out,” he begs, in a voice he doesn’t even recognise. Something high and wanton. A voice he didn’t even know he could make until Richie lay him down on his bed and pushed inside him for the first time. 

“Beautiful boy,” Richie says sweetly. “Finish it, come on,” he murmurs.

So Eddie does. As Richie continues his slow, tormenting pace, Eddie finishes whisking the filling and lifts the bowl with shaking fingers so can pour the filling into the pastry shell. He almost drops it, but rights the bowl right at the last second. Afterwards he stares at it: the beautiful, flaky, butter pastry crust with its autumnal filling, and that floaty feeling of satisfaction comes over him. He’d done good. He did exactly as Richie told him.

“I’ve done it, Richie,” he sighs, his voice sounding faraway. “I’ve finished the pie.”

He melts when Richie kisses him on the side of his neck, scraping his teeth over his pulse point where it jumps rapidly.

“I knew you could do it, Eddie, I knew you could make me happy.”

And Richie rewards him. He pulls Eddie’s hips back and with his free hand pushes Eddie’s cheek against the counter until Eddie is bent at an obscene angle. At a fuckable angle, Eddie thinks with a shiver. But that’s the last coherent thought he has for a long time because a moment later Richie’s pulling out until just the tip of his dick is spearing Eddie open, and then he does what Eddie’s wanted all this time. He shoves back inside, the squelch of the lube pornographically loud in their quiet kitchen, and he rails him hard. It’s the hardest fuck Eddie’s had in days, and fuck it feels so good, his ass bouncing off Richie’s sharp hips on every thrust, Richie's cock punching his tiny hole open, and the low-pitched growl coming from Richie’s throat making his dick slap against his stomach.

"I kind of want to eat this pumpkin pie out of you," Richie suddenly says, his fingers so tight on Eddie's waist he knows they'll leave bruises. "Would you let me do that? Just finger it inside of your dumb cunt and then eat it out of you."

And it shouldn't sound hot. It should sound ridiculous. But it doesn't stop Eddie from crying out or his balls drawing up.

"I'm going to-"

He cuts off on a whine as Richie reaches around and grabs him in warning.

"You better not. Not until I say."

Eddie nods, trying to bite back a sob at the sharp pain in his balls. Richie starts fucking him again, hammering his prostate on every push inside him, muttering so filthy it makes Eddie flush all the way down to his chest.

And when Richie finally tells him to come he does, clenching around him until he shoots sticky white all over the counter.

“Good boy,” Richie says as he pulls his cock out to smear the sticky head against the sore skin at his hole, making Eddie shiver. “Now let's go for that money shot. How much do you think you can make Daddy come?"

And Eddie, with gusto, shows him.

**Prompt #7 Ouch**

"Ouch," Edie says as Richie ties her to the chair in the middle of the room. "Ouch, Richie, you're hurting me."

Richie sighs and looks up at her, fingers deft as she finishes the last knot tying her ankle to the chair leg. 

"I'm sorry," she says. "I am. But you know I have to do this."

Edie pouts down at her, her mouth puckered and pink. "Are you really? I don't think you're sorry at all."

Richie stands, drawing her fingers through her short hair. She's exhausted, they all are.

"Give me a break, okay? This is for your own good."

But Edie's expression, beneath the feigned sorrow, is pure mischief. And Richie just knows she's going to be a living hell tonight.

Billie appears in the doorway behind them.

"All okay, Richie?"

"Yeah, I just finished the knots."

"Okay, cool. I need to get home for dinner or my parents are going to blow up, but I'll be back as soon as I can." Her eyes drift to Edie, where she's tied up. "And you. Be good, okay? Don't cause any trouble while I'm gone."

Edie bats her eyelashes in response and purses her lips together as if for a kiss. 

Billie grimaces slightly. "Are you sure you're going to be okay with her?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine. I'll see you later."

Billie closes the door behind her and Richie's left in the ensuing silence.

They had taken Edie to the house on Neibolt. Between the six of them, they had been able to overpower her, though it had still been hard. Edie had thrashed against them, using her long nails to scratch long bloodied trails across their arms and faces. She had hissed at them too, calling them bitches and traitors, before palming Bev's dick and asking him if he wanted his dick sucked. That she'd fuck him if he'd just let her go.

The jealousy had turned Richie's mouth sour. Had made her clock Edie in the face, knocking her out cold.

But they had got her here, and that had all agreed to take shifts watching her. At least until they could figure out what the hell to do.

Richie looks around the room. It had been a long time since they were last here. Since the clown.

Behind her, she can hear Edie straining against the ropes. 

"Stop trying it. You won't break free from those knots."

And she wouldn't. Not when Edie hadn't fed for four days. They were lucky they caught her when they did, before her next kill.

So, of course, Edie tries another tactic. 

In a pleading, soft tone she says, "Richie, won't you look at me?"

"Not right now."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want to, okay?"

"I'm going crazy, Richie, please, I need you to look at me."

And Richie can't resist her. She's never been able to resist Edie. She turns around, frowning.

"What do you want?"

Edie stares at her, dark lashes brushing against her cheeks. And fuck, she was a vision. Tied to the chair in her purple cheerleading uniform, her dark brown hair spilling from its ponytail around her shoulders, she was beautiful. And Richie's mouth goes dry as her eyes drift down to Edie's chest, at the way her tied arms make her tits push out, how big and round they look under her top. Her legs are tanned and long under her skirt too, and as if she can hear Richie's thoughts, Edie parts her thighs, making her skirt pull up even higher. 

"Do you like the way I look, Richie?"

"No," Richie says a little too quickly.

"I think you do. It's okay, you know, I like when you look at me."

Richie doesn't know what to say. She'd been looking at Edie for years - quick, stolen glances in the locker rooms at school when they were changing for netball, or at the lake, when Edie stripped down to her tight pink swimsuit - but she'd never thought Edie had noticed. 

"You could have a taste, you know, while the others aren't here."

"A taste?"

Edie smiles, and her tiny teeth look razor sharp where they press against her bottom lip.

"Of me, silly. I know you want to."

"Fuck you," Richie rasps. 

The smile on Edie's face becomes utterly lascivious as she says, "You can if you want."

"Shut up! Just shut the fuck up, Edie!"

Richie goes to leave, to step into the hallway and take a breather. She can't take much more of this. Except Edie calls out, making her pause.

"Don't go, Richie, please," she says. "I was only teasing you, I'm sorry."

"It doesn't matter," Richie says. "I'll just be in the other room."

Edie strains against the knots again, her voice going high and desperate. "No, Richie, no. I need your help."

And Richie knows she should ignore her. Everything was a game to Edie now, but the tone makes her pause. She could never deny Edie when she used that voice. It reminded her far too much of their time with the clown, how frightened and sad Edie sounded when they were in the sewers.

Richie looks over her shoulder at her. "My help?"

Edie nods. "Yes. I'm hungry," she says meekly.

"Well there's nothing I can do about that. And I'm not about to let you start snacking on me."

"No, Richie," Edie says, her eyes shining in the gloom. "That's not what I'm hungry for."

Richie's stomach goes tight. She knows what Edie's referring to. Ever since the bite at the start of the year, only two things had fuelled Edie. The first was blood, and the fresher the better. Human blood where possible. And the second was come. Her own, or someone else's. 

Edie was a bona fide fucking succubus. 

"I could die, Richie. Is that what you want?"

"No," Richie says. "That's not what I want."

Edie smiles and her thighs part even more, forcing Richie's eyes down to the dark, tantalising space between them. 

Richie swallows once. Twice. And she makes her way back into the room. 

Because it was true. From what they knew about the bite, Edie could technically die if she went too long without blood or sex. She would start to lose her vitality, her strength, and like keeping a dying man from water, Edie would eventually curl up and waste away. And it wouldn't just affect the demon, it would be everything. Including the girl she once was. Sweet little Edith Kaspbrak. 

But beyond that, swirling behind the need to protect her, to stop her from starving, Richie wants her. After years of looking at her, and smelling the gentle perfume on her jumpers when she pulled them off in the hot sun, and brushing her fingers through her hair when Edie wasn't looking. Richie wants her so badly. And she can't turn her down. Not when she's presenting herself so easily for her, parting her thighs so beautifully.

Richie falls to her knees again in front of the other girl. Or, at least, the thing wearing Edie's skin. And with trembling fingers she pushes her skirt up all the way to her waist. The cheerleader skirt that had tormented her for months. 

In a hushed voice she says, "If I do this for you, will you shut up?"

Edie nods, suddenly the picture of piety. "Yes, Richie, please, I need you."

Under her skirt, Edie's wearing lilac panties with tiny teddy bears dotted along them. Richie shivers all over. With fingers that shake, she pulls them down, all the way down Edie's tanned legs. And that's when Richie sees it: Edie's pretty pink cunt, wet and ready for her tongue. 

"Oh my god," Richie blurts. 

"What is it?" Edie asks in a teasing voice. "I know you've tasted a girl before."

Richie swallows, her mouth suddenly bone dry. She had tasted girls, but she'd never tasted Edie.

"Come on, cowgirl," Edie says, "won't you take me for a spin?

As if in a trance, Richie eases between her thighs, tracing her tongue over her wet heat. 

At the first touch of her tongue, Edie wails like she's been stabbed. 

Richie pulls her head back sharply and looks up at her. 

"Are you okay?"

"Yes, oh my god, please," Edie moans, pulling against the ropes as she pushes her hips out as hard as she can. "Please put your tongue inside me."

The words heat Richie's blood, make her nipples pebble under her t-shirt. Never in her wildest dreams did she ever think she'd hear Edie say that.

She dips her head back between the warm cradle of Edie's thighs and stares at her. She was so fucking pretty. Soft and smooth, apart from a dusting of dark hair just above her pussy. And her clit, plump and hard, peeked out, begging for Richie's mouth. 

Richie feels herself drool just looking at her, and she darts her tongue out to taste it, that little nodule of hard candy. 

Edie moans encouragingly, pussy growing wetter as Richie sucks on her clit. 

"Ngh yes, Richie, like that, yeah," she says, tilting her hips up to give Richie better access. 

And luckily Richie knew exactly what to do. She'd been eating girls out for two years now, ever since her study partner for Biology came over her house, and ended up spread out on Richie's bed as Richie pushed her tongue inside her. She'd made that girl come that night, and Richie quickly became addicted to it. How it felt to push between a girl's soft thighs and put her mouth on her until she came. How quickly she could make them come undone, their fingers in Richie's hair as they cried out, especially the uptight ones. Especially girls who were like Edie.

And Edie's getting even wetter now, loudly begging Richie for more as her cunt goes slick. And Richie, never able to resist a girl when she starts begging, does what Edie wants. She draws down to her hole and laps at her opening until she opens, unfurling like a pink flower against the tip of her tongue. When she's lax and ready, Richie breathes against her, savouring the way Edie shivers from her hot breath, and then spears Edie open in one hard push. Above her Edie goes still, and then lets out a wail so loud and high-pitched Richie thinks the windows might shatter. 

"Fuck, Richie, yes," she babbles, her pretty pussy humping against Richie's face. "Fuck me, god, _please_."

So Richie does, muscling her shoulders under Edie's legs and fucking her on her tongue. Getting her tongue as deep as it can go into that soft, pink cunt. And fuck she tasted good, sweeter than any girl she'd ever gone down on before.

And for a moment everything melts away: the rotting beams above her, the old house around them, the fact that Edie had been infected by a demon, that Billie could be back any moment and find them like this. None of it mattered. All she could think about was her tongue inside Edie, and how fucking good it felt. How she wanted to do this every day for the rest of her life. 

She realises suddenly that Edie could kill her if she wanted to, could squeeze her thighs around Richie's neck and crush her windpipe.

But for some reason the thought doesn't frighten her, it just turns her on more. She licks inside her faster, spurred on by the girl's moaning.

As she eats Edie out, Richie's hand strays into her lap where her own pussy's gone wet under her jeans, and she starts grinding up against her palm for relief. God, she wanted nothing more than to untie Edie and bring the other girl into her lap. Her mind flies through all the options: of the two of them grinding their cunts together or maybe 69ing until they were both coming. Of Richie pushing her fingers inside Edie while the other girl mouthed at her pussy. But she knows she can't. Because the moment she unties her, Edie will be gone.

Instead, Richie reaches up and rubs Edie's nipple through the stiff material of her top. The small touch forces a fresh moan out of Edie, and she pushes her chest against Richie's hand shamelessly, softly begging for more.

Richie pulls off Edie's pussy and looks up at her.

"Why are your tits so hard?" she breathes.

"You just turn me on, Richie," Edie says, her eyes glassy. "I've wanted you for so long."

"Is that true?"

And she knows it probably wasn't. Edie would do anything to come. But it doesn't stop her from hoping. 

"It's true, Richie. I want you so much."

Richie feels overwhelmed, doesn't even know how to respond. So she focuses on Edie's tits instead, rubbing and pinching them until they're poking through her top. Suddenly, her hand strikes out and she slaps one, shivering from the surge of power she feels as Edie bucks and cries out. 

She asks, "Can any guy get you as wet as I can?" 

"No, Richie, only you," Edie says, shaking her head, her hair a gorgeous dark halo around her shoulders.

Richie's eyes narrow. According to the giggled rumours going around school, Edie was getting wet for every braindead jock that looked at her. That she had been giving away blow jobs like they were pennies, that she'd let you fondle her tits and finger her if you just asked nicely. She'd even been caught riding Jason Halloway in the drama room among the mannequins, his jeans bunched around his thighs as he thrust his cock up into Edie's tight little pussy. Apparently she'd been calling him names as he fucked her, that she'd chewed on his neck until he bled.

Which was fine, of course. As the Losers pointed out awkwardly, Edie was entitled to a sex life.

Until the boys had started turning up dead, of course.

In punishment, Richie sucks a bruise into Edie's right thigh, where the skin is warm and pale. Edie moans again, but this time it's pitched low - more a pained groan than the pornographic moans from earlier - and the smell of her pussy ripens like the pain's getting her wetter. 

Richie trembles at the thought, and she continues sucking until Edie's left with a wet, purple bruise the size of her mouth.

When she pushes back in, Edie's even wetter than before. And Richie relishes it, licking her tongue around her plump little clit before pushing it back into her hungry cunt. She eats her out like she needs it. And maybe she does. After years of looking, of yearning. Maybe she does need it.

It doesn't take Edie long to come. Not with Richie's tongue buried inside her, her thumb rubbing hard circles into her clit. Not with Richie reaching up to grope her tits every now and then, wishing she had a pair of scissors to hand so she could cut through the material and suck on them. 

Edie goes stiff as she throws her head back and cries out, suddenly wetting Richie's tongue and chin as she comes. There's so much of it too, spilling out of her like a broken bottle. There's so much of it Richie thinks she could collect it in her palm if she brought her hand up. It's the longest, wettest orgasm Richie's ever given a girl, and she trembles all over as she watches Edie. How beautiful she looks with her thighs shaking, her slutty pussy so desperate to come for as long as possible. When she's finished, finally, falling back against the chair, Richie laps all of it up, running her tongue along her pussy and inner thighs until she's clean. Until Edie shivers, obviously sensitive.

"Good girl," she says when she pulls back, falling back onto her heels. Her mouth feels heated and heavy. 

On the chair, Edie sighs gently, sounding content. She looks debauched: her cheeks flushed red, eyes glassy, her crumpled panties around her ankles. She looks like the slut everyone had been calling her behind her back for weeks now. Like she'd just had the best fuck of her life.

It wouldn't keep Edie quiet for long. She'd need blood too. But for now it was enough.

Richie stumbles into the other room and undoes her belt, shucking down her jeans so she can knock the heel of her palm hard against her clit. As she does she thinks about Edie's tits, how big and round they looked beneath her top; how sweet her cunt tasted on her tongue; how she cried out Richie's name as she thrashed against the ropes; until she's coming hard against her hand.

As she's coming down from her orgasm, she hears Edie giggle from the next room.

"Did I affect you that much, Richie?" she calls out.

"Shut up," Richie grouses. Or at least tries to. Because she's just destroyed her underwear and her mouth still tastes like Edie's sticky heat. 

"Oh, in time for round two?" Edie teases. 

Richie grits her teeth, trying not to shiver at the thought of what round two could entail.

"Just shut up and I'll be back in a minute."

Edie only giggles again in reply.

In the kitchen, Richie pulls up her jeans and splashes cold water onto her face. In the other room Edie's gone silent, and she prays she won't have to face Edie's relentless mocking for the rest of the night. Or worse, Edie begging to come again.

"I'm so fucked," she mutters.

What had happened could never happen again. It was a mistake. What would the others do if they found out?

And like magic, that's when Billie walks back through the door.

"Richie?" she calls from the hallway. 

"I'm back here," she replies, before wearily making her way into the hallway.

But there's something wrong. Richie sees it in Billie's face instantly.

"What is it?"

Billie turns to her, shock turning her face pale.

"Where's Edie?"

"What?"

Richie spins around the corner to look in the room, and her heart seizes up when she sees it lying empty, the chair turned on its side, the ropes lying twisted and broken on the floor. The front window had been thrown open, letting in the cold night air. 

Fuck. Edie had gotten away.

**Prompt #8 Spellbook**

Eddie feels Richie's eyes on him that afternoon, as he cycles back from town in his red cloak and polished brogues. 

It wasn't a strange feeling. Richie had been watching Eddie more and more recently. Maybe because of the upcoming Maypole, or maybe it was because of something else. Eddie couldn't put his finger on it, but he didn't examine it too closely either. Richie had always been a little weird. 

The cat had sneered at him that morning when he came down for breakfast.

"You look like a perfect little teacher's pet," he said, his tail swishing, eyes lit with mischief as he stared at Eddie. Like he wanted nothing more than to pounce on Eddie's cloak and tear it to red ribbons. 

"Luckily, I don't care what you think," Eddie had replied as he swished his finger to upturn the milk bottle and pour it into his cereal.

He still poured some of the milk into Richie's bowl before he left. Richie may not have been a real cat, but it didn't stop him from falling into typical cat habits every now and then. One was enjoying milk, another was having his ears scratched. Something that Richie vehemently denied. 

The cat's eyes are on him now, making Eddie's gaze dart up to his bedroom window. Except Richie's sleeping on the windowsill, not staring at him at all. And there's nothing next to him but a couple of Eddie's trinkets and the deadly nightshade he was growing. 

Maybe Eddie had been wrong. But he could have sworn the cat was watching him. 

As soon as they get in, Eddie's mother says she'll start preparing lunch - with a side dish of toasted newt as Eddie was so good today - and Eddie bounds up the stairs with the shopping bags in his hands. 

Up in his room, Richie lounges lazily on the sill, barely acknowledging Eddie when he walks in.

"I bought some clothes for the Maypole, Richie, do you want to see them?"

Eddie digs through the bags and spins around with the sweater draped across his chest. 

"Richie, what do you think of this?"

He gets no reply. Instead the black cat continues to lie there, one of his front paws hanging lazily off the sill. 

"Richie!"

The cat's left ear twitches, but still no reply. 

"Richie, you lazy ass. I need your help, come on."

The cat sighs, and stops feigning sleep. He lifts his head off his paw, fixing Eddie with a deep, bright-blue glare.

"Come on, kid, give me a break, I was up all night," he says. 

Eddie scoffs. "You were up hunting rats. Hardly a noble cause."

"No," the cat says, with a hint of teeth. "I was patrolling the grounds and protecting your scrawny little butt while you got to sleep."

But Eddie just rolls his eyes. He was used to the temper tantrums and the moodiness. 

"Just tell me what you think."

Richie eyes the jumper. 

"No," he says. 

"No?"

"It's too twee."

Eddie looks at it. Maybe it was a little twee, with its wool and Peter Pan collar, but he thought the colour would suit him, and it would keep him warm in the dark forest. But maybe Richie was right. The Dark Lord would rise tomorrow, for the annual Maypole in his name. He needed to be prepared. 

"I thought it was cute," he mumbles, bundling it up and throwing it into the pile of clothes he'd assessed and discarded earlier that day.

"It is cute, but you're meeting the Dark Lord, not going to a bake sale. What other options are there?"

"Erm, this?" 

Eddie holds up a blouse. It's a deep burgundy, the colour of wine or blood, in a soft silky material. 

Richie's ears flicker - something that could denote annoyance or amusement. It was hard to tell with Richie. Sometimes it was both.

"Better, but still not quite right. Come on, Eds, impress me."

Eddie chews at his bottom lip. There was another option, though he was loath to show Richie. It had been his mother's choice. Something she had cooed over in the shop before pushing Eddie into the dressing rooms to try it on, simpering about how beautiful it would look. 

He pulls the box out of the bag. It had been the most expensive option by far, and it lay nestled in a box surrounded by tissue paper. 

As he pulls the flowing material out of the box he asks, "How about this?"

Richie lifts his head off his paws again as he stares at it. 

After a moment he lets out a quiet purr and nods his head. "That's it. Wear that."

Eddie had been scared of that. He was holding what was basically a dress, long and white, with a high neck of lace and a long, flowing skirt. It was pretty, for sure, but Eddie doubted it had been made for a boy, or that it was intended for anything other than a girl's holy communion. 

But he would be dancing the Maypole, his mother had insisted, and it was tradition for all boys and girls to wear white. Didn't he want to please their Lord?

Eddie had nodded frantically at the time. There was nothing he wanted more. But he didn't want to look silly either.

He looks back at Richie, who's staring at him with those big, bright eyes. "I won't look like a girl?"

"No," Richie rumbles, "you'll look beautiful."

Eddie shifts from one foot to the other, feeling his cheeks heat.

"It's mom's favourite too," he says.

The cat lets out a small huff. "For once, your mom and I agree. The Dark Lord will love it on you. Purity and all that."

Eddie frowns at his tone. "You shouldn't speak about the Dark Lord like that. That's what got you turned into a cat in the first place."

He feels bad as soon as he says it, knows he's just parroting his mother, but Richie doesn't seem bothered. 

"Trust me," he says, as he places his head back on his paws, "I was turned into a cat for a lot worse than that."

And that was true. Richie _had_ been turned into a cat for a lot worse. Eddie knows because he'd read about it in one of their history books at school. Richie had been one of the Dark Lord's most loyal servants. Had been personally reared and moulded by their leader, with the hope that one day Richie would become his sword. His fiercest warrior, joining the legions of boys like Henry Bowers and Patrick Hockstetter.

Except things didn't turn out that way. Because a string of young men started turning up in the surrounding lands around Derry, all killed their necks slit. One by one, these boys went missing and less than a week later would be found dead. All young, all pretty. All brutally killed.

Then Richie's parents were murdered. Two of the Lord's most faithful servants killed with an axe in their own home one night.

_He did a Lizzie Borden on them_ , Ben had told him giddily one afternoon. And Eddie didn't know who that was. But it didn't sound good.

In punishment, Richie hadn't been killed - he was far too violent and cunning for that: two qualities the Dark Lord relished.

No, instead, he was transformed into a cat, his powers locked away. And only when the Dark Lord deemed he had repented enough, would his human body be restored. But that had been a long time ago. Almost 200 years. But there was a chance, maybe, that tomorrow would be the night.

Hoping for forgiveness, Eddie asks, "Do you want your ears scritched?"

And to his surprise, Richie says, "Sure."

So Eddie does, crawling over his bed so he can rest his hand on the cat's head and scratch behind his ears. 

All of a sudden, Richie's paw darts out and he drags his nails across Eddie's wrist. 

"Ah!" Eddie cries out and snatches his hand away. On his wrist were two perfectly arched scratches, glaring red against his pale skin. 

He glares at Richie. "What did you do that for?"

"Oh I don't know," Richie says mildly, eyes closed. "I just felt like it."

"You're awful and cruel, you know," he says as he marches out his bedroom.

"That's what they say."

Eddie feels annoyed - Richie was mercurial to say the last. Sometimes soft and charming, at other times simmering with a barely contained rage that made Eddie uneasy. But he tries not to think about it for the rest of the evening. He has far too much to do. 

In the living room, he cracks out his spellbook and practices his charms - small things really, like levitation and making butterflies appear - and rehearses his Maypole dance while his mother claps and tells him how amazing he'll be. 

Richie slinks down at some point and watches him too. Not commenting. Just watching Eddie as he dances, spread out on the back of the couch like a long, black fur scarf, his tail swishing every now and then.

It makes Eddie feel strange, but he doesn't mind either. 

And he keeps the scratch hidden from his mother.

That night she sends Eddie to bed without supper. He had to be sharp with longing, she said. That's what the Dark Lord would want. 

A little while later, Eddie lies in bed, his mind jumping from one awful scenario to the next, his body growing stiff with dread. What if he forgot his lines tomorrow night? What if he stepped out of place during the dance? What if the Dark Lord didn't like him?

Richie comes up to his room too, jumping up onto Eddie's windowsill as he did every night.

"Richie," Eddie whispers after a few minutes of silence. "Will it go okay, do you think?"

"What?"

"The Maypole."

Richie's eyes glint in the dark. "It'll be fine. You've been practicing for weeks. And Pennywise always rewards diligence."

Eddie shivers at the use of his real name. No one called him that. Not even mama. 

"I'm scared."

And he was. He'd only ever seen drawings of Pennywise in his mother's books and in huge paintings in the hallways at school. In each one, Eddie's eyes were drawn to his engorged head, his white hands with the long nails, his fierce, orange eyes. And every time, it made Eddie freeze, heart pounding in fright. He'd never looked at the pictures and felt anything but scared. 

"You don't have to be scared," Richie says softly. "You're not like me. You're good."

Eddie turns to him, taken aback by his tone. 

Eventually he whispers, "Why did you do it?"

He doesn't have to specify. Richie knows exactly what he means. 

Richie turns to stare out the window, his black fur dazzling in the moonlight. 

"Because I thought it was fun," he says flatly. "Because I'd been warped with power. I thought I could get away with it."

"And your parents?"

Richie doesn't say anything for a moment, and Eddie's afraid he's gone too far, until Richie speaks again.

"I didn't like when anyone told me what to do," he says finally. Eddie waits a moment longer, but Richie doesn't say anything else.

"Do you think there's a chance our Lord could turn you back tomorrow?"

Richie turns back to Eddie and his eyes flash with a bright blue heat.

"I'm not fucking Pinocchio. I'm not suddenly going to be a real boy again. He holds that promise over me to make me his slave. It's nothing more."

Eddie's heart jumps to his throat. No one had ever spoken about the Dark Lord to him that way and for a moment he's frightened that Pennywise himself will appear in his room to strike him down. Like he did to any non-believers in their community.

After a while, Richie looks at him contrite. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't speak to you that way."

"It's okay," Eddie says. For some reason, Richie's words were refreshing, even if they did give Eddie the heebie-jeebies.

"Still. I was assigned to your household to look after you. Not to be cruel. I apologise."

Eddie fiddles with his bedsheets for a moment, trying not to laugh. Richie spoke like he was in an old movie sometimes. 

"Another thing-"

Richie sighs as he wets his paw and draws it across his face. "You're full of questions tonight, aren't you, Kaspbrak?"

"I was just wondering... why did you scratch me?"

Richie stops washing himself to fix him with another one of those long, deep stares.

"I'll tell you when you're older," he says finally. "You wouldn't understand yet."

"Erm, okay?"

And Eddie didn't understand. At all. Richie was so weird. 

"Hold your wrist out," Richie says.

Eddie makes a face. "Are you joking? Why, so you can scratch it again?"

"Just do it."

So Eddie does, bringing his scratched wrist to Richie's face. 

Richie surveys the damage for a moment and then his tongue darts out to lick it. Eddie tenses - cat tongues felt so strange, and Richie's was always so warm. But instantly, the scratches fade and start to disappear, leaving Eddie's skin perfectly unmarked. 

"Wow, cool," Eddie breathes as he stares at his wrist. 

"Yeah, it's okay I guess," Richie deadpans as his tail swishes. 

"Richie?"

"Hmmm?"

"Will you come to bed with me?"

The cat looks down at him, something like apprehension in his eyes. 

"I shouldn't."

"I won't tell."

So the cat does, jumping down from the windowsill and curling up in the space that Eddie had made next to him. He circles the spot - once, twice - and then settles down by Eddie's chest in a loose semi-circle. And when Eddie reaches out tentatively to run his fingers down his back, Richie doesn't hiss like he usually does. Instead he lets out a quiet, content purr. 

"Richie?"

"What?"

"I'm glad, you know, that you came to stay with us."

After a moment, Richie replies. "I'm glad too. But you really need to sleep now."

"You'll look after me tomorrow, during the Maypole?"

Richie's eyes open and he fixes him with that bright blue stare again. "I'll always look after you, Eddie. Now go to sleep."

"Okay," Eddie says, curling his arms around the cat and breathing in his warm smell.

After a few minutes, he falls asleep, and that night has the best sleep he's had in a long time. And all the while the cat watches him, staring at the freckles on Eddie's cheeks and his dark eyelashes, and hopes that Pennywise will turn him back. That tomorrow night will finally be the night.

**Author's Note:**

> Poppy Z Brite's short story collection "Wormwood" was a big influence on a couple of these mini fics, so if you're looking for a good horror collection to read I'd highly recommend it. Angela Carter is, of course, a big influence too.
> 
> My candy prompt was also directly inspired by the Buffy episode "Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered".
> 
> As always, come say hi to me on my tumblr at @shortcake-kaspbrak


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